A Bahrain royal is being sued because he refused to meet Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar

Sheikh Hamad Isa Ali al-Khalifa, a distant cousin of the King of Bahrain, is facing a lawsuit of epic proportions. The royal, who is also the nephew of the Deputy Prime Minister, is being sued by Dubai-based Egyptian businessman Ahmed Adel Abdullah Ahmed. The businessman is seeking $42.5 million (INR309.12 crore) in damages. The charge: Refusing to meet Bollywood's most loved stars. Zaiwalla & Co, a London-based law firm representing Ahmed, have filed documents in the UK High Court on behalf of Ahmed, alleging the breach of a verbal agreement the complainant says he struck with the Sheikh in January 2016.

According to the Egyptian businessman, the verbal agreement between the two included the businessman arranging meetings with Bollywood actors such as Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Ranveer Singh, Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt, for which the royal would compensate him monetarily. The Dubai resident alleges that the Sheikh has agreed to pay as much as $1.5 million per celebrity and intended to meet as many as 26 Bollywood stars.

The documents filed by Ahmed's council state that he had set up meetings for 15 - 25 minutes with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan after the royal signed three "special authorisation bonds" in order to have Ahmed facilitate meetings with Aamir Khan, along with other Bollywood celebrities.

The complainant's company, CBSC Events & Exhibition and Conference Organizers, was also reportedly asked to sponsor an awards event in Dubai, in March 2016. The event was to act as a means for the Sheikh to socialise with stars -- for which he would pay an additional $500,000 (INR3.63 crore). But Ahmed alleges that the payments never came through. Not only did the awards event get cancelled, the Sheikh also backed out of planned meetings with Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan, which were to take place in April 2016.

The documents add that the businessman was to be paid an additional bonus of $500,000 (INR3.63 crore) after every three meetings arranged. Though the complainant agrees that he was paid a total of $4 million (INR29.09 crore) through a mixture of cash and bank transfers, he says that he is still to receive and outstanding amount of $8.5 million (INR61.82 crore).

The firm of Herbert Smith Freehills, who are representing the Sheikh, are asserting that a British court does not have jurisdiction over the royal since he is not a resident of the United Kingdom. The royal had attempted to move the trial to Bahrain last year but was unsuccessful. According to The Independent, his legal representatives are questioning Ahmed's claims, and whether such an agreement -- without the traditional paperwork -- can be viewed as legally binding. According to them, the Sheikh pulled out of the deal after Ahmed began to put him on the spot by making unforeseen demands for huge amounts of money. Even the meetings he sought to arrange were not convenient for the Sheikh, who says that he paid $3.4 million (INR24.72 crore) to spend time with four Bollywood celebrities before asking Ahmed that he wished to discontinue the exercise.

Pavani Reddy, a Managing Partner at Zaiwalla & Co, was quoted as saying by PTI that this case was a particularly interesting one since it involved oral agreements made in London by individuals who were not British subjects. Though oral agreements are enforceable in the country's courts, it will be up to the judge to determine whether the agreement was breached.

The hearings are set to begin on November 12 and will go on for five days. But no matter what the court decides, one fact remains: The Bahrain royal just might be the biggest Bollywood fan you'll ever come across. The Sheikh himself has admitted that he has an "unbridled desire and fancy to establish contacts with Bollywood stars". Sources close to him state that the royal's fascination with Bollywood began early since he was raised by an Indian nanny.